Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Fifty years ago, an 18-year old songwriter named Laura Nyro asked, “Can you surry? Can you picnic?”Laura Nyro didn’t tell us HOW to surry. She just asked if we could do it. Then she instructed us to,“Surry down to the stoned soul picnic. There’ll be lots of time and wine, red-yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine. And from the sky come the Lord and the lightning.”What? What did you say would come from the sky?And “surry” by the way, is a verb that Laura Nyro admitted she made up.Laura’s Stoned Soul Picnic became a platinum record for The Fifth Dimension, selling more than a million copies.Do you have the courage to write that way?“Eli’s comin’. Hide your heart, girl. Eli’s comin’. Better walk-walk. But you’ll never get away from the burnin’ heartache. I walked to Apollo by the bay.”In ancient times, the temple of Apollo by the bay in Naples was believed to be one of the entrances to the Underworld. So maybe Laura Nyro was saying, “I walked to the edge of death tryin’ escape the burnin’ heartache.” But then again, maybe she meant something else entirely. She never bothered to say.Do you have the courage to write ads that way?“Yes, but why would I want to?”“Because most ad writing is painfully predictable and coldly colorless. It lacks rhythm and bounce. It lacks laughter and light. And that’s why people ignore it.”“I’m not scared of dying and I don’t really care. If it’s peace you find in dying ­– when dying time is here – just bundle up my coffin, ‘cause I hear that it’s cold way down there. Yeah, crazy cold way down there. My troubles are many, they’re as deep as a well. I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.”Written when she was 17, Laura Nyro’s And When I Die sold more than 4 million copies and was certified quadruple platinum. It also won a Grammy for Blood, Sweat and Tears in 1970. The rhythm and bounce of that song were remarkable. [I’ve gathered all these songs for you in the rabbit hole – Indy Beagle]Do you have the courage to write website copy with rhythm and bounce?Believe it or not, it was a Laura Nyro song that made Barbra Streisand a household word. Laura’ s Stoney End (1971) was Barbra’s biggest song for 5 years, until she recorded Evergreen in 1976.“I was born from love and my poor mother worked the mines. I was raised on the Good Book Jesus till I read between the lines. Now I don’t believe I want to see the morning. I never wanted to go down the stoney end. Mama let me start all over. Cradle me, Mama, cradle me again. I can still remember him with love light in his eyes. But the light flickered out and parted as the sun began to rise. Now I don’t believe I want to see the morning.”And just to show us the breadth of her diversity, Laura Nyro wrote Wedding Bell Blues.“Bill, I love you so. I always will. I look at you and see the passion eyes of May. But am I ever gonna see my wedding day? I was on your side, Bill, when you were losing. I was the one came runnin’ when you were lonely. In your voice I hear a choir of carousels. But am I ever gonna hear my wedding bells?”Hang on a second. What does “a choir of carousels” sound like?Wedding Bell Blues rocketed to #1 on the charts and stayed there for 15 weeks.Do you have the courage to engage the imagination and raise eyebrows?If you do, you’ll elevate attention, increase time on site, time spent listening, and ultimately conversion and profitability.Do I have your attention now?The reason most ad writers don’t have the courage to include made-up words and weird phrases in their ads is because every time they’ve done it in the past, a prune-faced martinet weaned on a pickle rapped them on the knuckles with a ruler, rolled his eyes and said, “You’re not doing it right.”Frightened, uptight martinets would rather be “safe and correct” than successful.AElton John credits Laura Nyro with giving him the courage to cut loose, engage the imagination and raise eyebrows. In a 2008 interview, Sir Elton spoke of the influence Laura Nyro had on his songwriting. “I idolized her,” he said. “The soul, the passion ­– just the out-and-out audacity… was like nothing I’d heard before.”Laura Nyro refused multiple invitations to appear on The Tonight Show and on Late Night with David Letterman. Uncomfortable with her fame, she retired from songwriting at 24, then passed away 20 years ago at the age of 49.Last week, Wizard Academy purchased a treasure trove from the family of Laura Nyro, including the letter she received from David Geffen, the painting she made of her mother, the music chart you see at the top of this page, a chunk of her personal record collection and a couple of dozen other mementos of her reluctant ride to fame 50 years ago.You’ll see all of these on display when you attend our special event of 2018, How to Make Money by Raising Eyebrows. We’re going to teach you how to think like a songwriter when you’re writing ads and website copy. Indy Beagle says he’ll have apples and peanut butter for everyone.Vice-Chancellor Whittington says he’ll have bail money.I say you’re going to have a wonderful time and return home happier, healthier, and ready to rock the world with your words.That’s what I say.Roy H. Williams

I was worried Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t be the same this year without Uncle Alfred. Every year for as long as I can remember, when the time came for each of us to name something we were thankful for, Uncle Alfred would tell his famous Story of the Shoes.“Your mother was six and I was nine when I had to cut the ends off my shoes to let my toes stick out. A year later, I couldn’t get my foot in them at all. On really cold days, I’d wrap my feet in newspaper and bind it with brown twine. I always knew where to find the twine because the newspaperman would cut the bundles apart at Ninth and Pike every morning, right in front of Boscov’s Department Store.One morning in late November I was looking at a pair of shoes in the window of Boscov’s when I heard a woman’s voice behind me say, “A penny for your thoughts.”I turned around and there she was, holding out a penny. You could buy penny candy in those days, so I took the penny and I told her the truth, even though I was horribly embarrassed. “I was asking God for a pair of shoes.” Her face fell a little when I said that, so I thought she was disappointed in my answer and wanted her penny back, so I dropped my eyes to the ground. That’s when she lifted my chin with her fingertips and smiled.“What’s your name?” she asked.“Alfred,” I answered.She held open the door to Boscov’s with one hand and extended the other to me, “Come inside with me Alfred.”I had never been inside Boscov’s.She sat me down in the shoe department, unwrapped the newspaper from my feet, and told the clerk to bring seven pairs of socks, all the same color. She put two pairs of socks on me, then told the clerk to fit me with the finest pair of work boots that money could buy, but fit them a little loose because I was obviously a growing boy.Standing up in those new boots, I felt six feet tall.She paid the clerk, then handed me the boot box that contained the other five pairs of socks. She shook my hand and said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Alfred, and Merry Christmas.” And then she began to walk away.That’s when I was surprised to hear my own quavering voice ask, “Are you God’s wife?”The beautiful lady turned and smiled, “No, baby doll, I’m Mrs. McGovern.”Uncle Alfred always finished his Story of the Shoes in exactly the same way. “I never saw Mrs. McGovern again, but I’ll remember her for as long as I live.” And then he would wipe the tears from his cheeks.Uncle Alfred never married and he never left Reading, Pennsylvania. But he rose through the ranks to become a railroad executive and did very well for himself. But my Uncle Alfred also did good. For every year in late November, beginning when he was 17, Alfred would purchase a substantial new pair of shoes for as many poor children as he could afford. Hundreds of children a year. And every pair would be delivered with a note that said, “A Gift from Mrs. McGovern.”And now I must break your heart.I don’t have an Uncle Alfred.“We are all very good at suspending our disbelief. We do it every day, while reading novels, watching television or going to the movies. We willingly enter fictional worlds where we cheer our heroes and cry for friends we never had.”– Marco Tempest, in his 2012 TED talk“Fiction is usually seen as escapist entertainment…But it’s hard to reconcile the escapist theory of fiction with the deep patterns we find in the art of storytelling… Our various fictional worlds are– on the whole– horrorscapes. Fiction may temporarily free us from our troubles, but it does so by ensnaring us in new sets of troubles– in imaginary worlds of struggle and stress and mortal woe… Fiction also seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard.”– Jonathan GottschallFacts tell. Stories sell. And specifics are more believable than generalities.I call these specifics, “reality hooks.” They make a story feel true, even when it’s not.I put 62 of them into my story of Uncle Alfred. See if you can find them.My story of Uncle Alfred was simply a doctored-up version of a story attributed to the late Leo Buscaglia. Here’s how it’s usually told:A (nameless) barefoot boy was staring through the window of a (nameless) shoe store on a cold day (in a nameless town.)A (nameless) lady approached him and said, ‘My, but you’re in such deep thought.’ The boy replied, ‘I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes.’Taking him by the hand the lady led him into the store and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. Then she asked him to get her a basin of water and a towel. (Because, you know, shoe store clerks always have a basin of water and a towel handy.) So he quickly brought them to her. She then washed the feet of the boy and dried them with the towel. Placing a pair of socks on the boy’s feet, she then purchased a pair of shoes for him.As she turned to go, the astonished kid caught her by the hand.Looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, he asked her: ‘Are you God’s wife?’Yes, it’s a pretty story and it has a fine moral and it echoes the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples at the last supper. But did it ring as true as my story of Uncle Alfred and Mrs. McGovern in the shoe department at Boscov’s in Reading, Pennsylvania?If you would be more convincing, remember this: specifics are more believable than generalities.And just for the record, the Boscov’s at Ninth and Pike in Reading, Pennsylvania, was built in 1918. You can double-check that, if you like.Can you say, “reality hook”?Indy said to tell you Arooo.Roy H. Williams

The world of online marketing was rocked so hard this summer that it almost fell to its knees.Some really big names in online marketing had the courage to announce that online customers are more likely to buy your products if they’ve heard of your company and feel good about it.Dumbfounded, I spoke to my computer screen as though online marketers everywhere could hear me, “How did you not already know that?”And then these same researchers suggested that building awareness through mass media might be a good thing to do, after all.Again, I mumbled, “How did you not already know that?”I’ve been fascinated for years that an entire army of Search Engine Optimization tweakers could – with a straight face – argue that brand awareness and brand preference are of no consequence in the online world. But then I would hear the echoing voice of Anatole France1 – with a French accent, because he was French, you know – “If fifty million people say a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing.”SEMrush2 was one of the big names in online marketing who concluded that “direct website visits” are the single most important factor in determining your SERP [Search Engine Results Page] position. In other words, they announced that Google is impressed – and will reward you with higher SERP placement – when people go directly to your web page instead of merely choosing your name from a list of search results.It makes sense, doesn’t it? Google is effectively saying, “If this is the company people think of immediately – and feel best about – in this category, then they must be the category leader.”Voilà, you and your company are on your way to the top of the Search Engine Results Page. All as the result of brand building through mass media and public relations.Like yesterday’s telephone book Yellow Pages, a Search Engine Results Page is an information source for customers who haven’t already made up their mind. But when faced with a list of names on the Search Engine Results Page, does it surprise you that even the so-called “undecided customers” will often choose the name they’ve heard of, and have good feelings about?Direct navigation is a powerful vote of confidence. Just like it was 25 years ago when customers would look you up in the White Pages of the phone book – or dial 411 for “Directory Assistance” and say your name – when they wanted to make contact with you by telephone.WordStream3 is a huge Pay-Per-Click company that works with over one million advertisers. They were the second big name in online marketing that came to the same conclusion as SEMrush, although they traveled a different road to get there. In their case, WordStream became fascinated by a PPC campaign that had a 300% increase in conversion rates for no apparent reason.They had changed nothing in the Pay-Per-Click campaign. They hadn’t changed the landing page, the bid strategy, or the ads. What WordStream finally discovered was that some brand-awareness ads were being funded in another media, and these ads had created a halo effect on the Pay-Per-Click ads.Here are their conclusions, in their own words:“Direct visits are fueled by your brand awareness, so building a strong brand image should be an essential part of your promotion strategy.” – SEMrush, page 42 of 55“What we are seeing here is that people with stronger brand affinity have higher conversion rates than people without any, because people tend to buy from the companies they already heard of and begun to trust.” – Larry Kim, WordStreamJeff Bezos figured all this out a long time ago.In chapter four of Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It, we read an exchange between Poobah and a younger man:The younger man continued to read. “Although it seems counterintuitive on the surface—a little bit insane, even—Bezos knew that making honest reviews available on each product page was the right thing to do for the customer. Today more than half of all retail purchases begin with a visit to Amazon to look at product reviews.”“Are you saying that Amazon.com has become the primary search engine for consumer product research in America?”The younger man looked up and locked eyes with his inquisitor as he nodded.You and I go directly to Amazon – because we think of them first and feel good about them – whenever we want to buy something. It is only AFTER we’ve navigated directly to Amazon that we begin to consider exactly what we’re going to buy.And that, my friend, is an example of a powerful brand. We choose Amazon first, no need for Google, or SEO tweakers, or AdWords to help us. Because we like Amazon.We believe in them.Now here’s the really good news: You can be like Amazon.Even a lemonade stand can do it.Roy H. Williams1 Anatole France (1844 –1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist who wrote several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered to be the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature.2 Ranking Factors, SEMrush Study 2.0 SEMrush serves 1,500,000 online marketing clients3 How to 3X AdWords Conversion Rates Without Touching AdWords

We are alert to danger because our survival depends upon it.But there is more to life than danger.There is singing.And looking at the sky.And chewing on a blade of grass.Have you done any of those things recently?They call to you from beyond your window.Walk outside.Sing a song.Pluck a blade of grass.Hold it high.Take a selfie.Email it to indy@wizardofads.comand he will email you something in return.Be sure to tell Indy what song you sang.Do it.You can afford to stop for 5 minutes.I promise you won’t get in trouble.Don’t just agree with me in your mind.Take a literal walk to the literal outdoors.Pick a literal blade of grass.Take a literal, ridiculous selfie.Literally send it to Indy.It will help you re-establish perspective.Now, more than ever, we need to cheer ourselves up.I will not name the things that are bringing us down.Too much has been spoken about them already.Do you remember the story of Chicken Little? An acorn falls on his head and he goes ripping through the village screaming that the sky is falling.He gets everyone all worked up.Did you know that story was 500 years old when Jesus walked the earth? It’s listed under Aarne-Thompson-Uther1 type 20C, which are folktales that make light of paranoia and mass hysteria.We are surrounded by Chicken Littles.On page 226 of Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Lee Iacocca talks about his father.“When I was worried about something, he’d prod me. ‘Lido, do you remember what was on your mind a year ago?’ And I’d say, ‘How could I remember? A lot of things happen in a year.’ He’d pull out some notes with a flourish, and say, ‘I have it written down.’ Then he’d proceed to tell me about something that had made me unhappy a year ago, and deliver the punch line: ‘You can’t even remember it now.’”Go outside.Pluck a blade of grass.Hold it up and sing a song and I promise that a year from now you’ll smile when you remember doing it. But you won’t be able to remember the name of today’s Chicken Little, or the particular acorn that has him so terribly frightened.I think I’ll have chicken for dinner.Roy H. Williams1 The Aarne–Thompson classification systems are indices used to classify folktales:

In 2018, I will continue to fade from sight. By the end of 2019, I hope to be completely transparent. This has been my goal since May of 2000.If the founder of an organization remains vitally involved until the day they are no longer viable, the organization they founded will cease to exist within 10 years after their passing.I don’t want that to happen to Wizard Academy.Don’t worry, I’m not dying or anything like that.The time-tested model for a successful transfer of leadership is to pass the torch to the next generation while the founder is still healthy and capable. Pennie and I have known this since the day we started the school.Does your organization have a plan of succession? I ask this only because I’ve seen fabulous businesses fumbled during the hand-off. It’s a heart-breaking thing to watch.I began to fade from sight in 2016, popping in only to say hello to each of the classes I wasn’t teaching. I’d spend a few minutes interacting with the students, asking each of them about their favorite moments, then I’d be gone.In 2017, I’ve chosen to stay completely out of sight during classes taught by other faculty members and everything has been fine. Wonderful, in fact. No one seems to have noticed my absence.In 2018, vice-chancellor Whittington will become the first person ever to teach the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop other than myself. You might want to consider being in his first class to share this important rite-of-passage with him.I do plan to teach Magical Worlds a few more times and I’m sure I’ll always have some small part to play in the Wizard Academy Reunion each October, but right now my biggest concern is to finish the construction of The House of the Lost Boys and The House of Bilbo Baggins, thereby making it possible for 24 students and an instructor to stay on campus. (Our current capacity is 18 total in Engelbrecht House and Spence Manor.)Pennie has a dazzling plan for terra-scaping the deep valley that stands between Chapel Dulcinea and the student mansions. I’m incredibly anxious to see it.When those last two student mansions and the valley are complete, Pennie and I will have finished what we set out to do.Want to hear something funny? I originally thought construction would take 5 to 7 years. But by the time we’re through, it will have taken 20.The directors of Wizard Academy know the importance of onboarding new leadership, so they’ve invited Ryan Deiss and Rex Williams to join them in managing the oversight of our 501(c)3 educational organization. Your 7-person board of directors is now 9 persons.The 50-and-60-somethings are beginning to turn things over to the 30-somethings.To every thing there is a season,and a time to every purpose under the heavens.A time to be defiant, and a time to comply;a time to struggle, and a time to relax;a time to get started, and a time to be done;a time for Gen-Xers and Millennialsto grasp the torch freely offeredby the Boomers in Winter.If you’re the kind of person who reads these Monday Morning Memos – and you obviously are – you’re spending the hours, days and years of your life building something that ought to forever be remembered and appreciated. So please begin thinking about a plan of succession. It’s not urgent, but it’s incredibly important.And to the thousands of you who have helped build Wizard Academy, please know we’re doing everything in our power to make sure your gifts will never be lost or forgotten. The campus guidebook – to be published in 2018 – will have many of your names in it and a mountain of glorious photos.Indy said to tell you Arooo, and that he’ll see you in the rabbit hole.Roy H. WilliamsPS – In case you were wondering, Pennie and I won’t be retiring for many more years. We still have lots of ads to create, client businesses to grow, Wizard of Ads partners to serve, and a smiling number of books to write. The leadership of Wizard Academy is the only thing from which we’ll be fading.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr will make 21.4 million dollars this year.He is the world’s one hundredth most highly paid athlete.1But don’t assume pro athletes make a lot of money. The sad truth is that the top 10 percent – the star athletes – receive more than 90 percent of all the money paid to athletes. If the 80/20 rule held true in sports, the salaries of the bottom 90 percent would more than double while the top 10 percent would get a barely noticeable haircut.The world’s most highly-paid athlete, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, will skip happily home with 93 million dollars in 2017. (Well, he’ll skip as happily as one can skip while lugging 2,048 pounds of hundred dollar bills.) 293 million dollars is $372,000 a day, more than $46,000 an hour. 3The average professional soccer player makes only $80/hr ($160,000/yr) and will play for just 3.2 years.Advertisers are like pro athletes. Everyone gets to play on game day, but only the best get paid on payday.Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo is better than the average soccer player. But is he 581 times better? Because that’s how much more money he makes. And keep in mind that the salaries of the other highly-paid soccer stars contribute toward raising that “average” salary up to $160,000.But my objective isn’t to rail against the injustice of professional sports.My objective is to draw a few comparisons that I believe you’ll find to be helpful and encouraging:1: Advertising’s Grand Illusion is that – because you paid for it – people are going to notice your ad.2: This illusion that people are going to notice your ad is perpetuated by three groups of people:(A.) By advertising salespeople.“The secret is to target the right people, and we have them for you!”(B.) By advertising agencies.“The secret is to target the right people, and we’ve found them for you!”(C.) By hope-filled advertisers.“The secret is to reach the right people, and that’s what I’m going to do!”3: REALITY: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.4: TRUTH: Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. This is why your ads must also reach the influencers; the friends and neighbors, co-workers and associates, hair stylists and golf caddies of your “target” customer.5: MORE GOOD NEWS! Untargeted “mass media” reaches the influencers along with your target, and it’s astoundingly cheap when compared to targeted media.6: BAD NEWS: Each of us is assaulted by more than 5,000 selling messages per day. 4 and 5 And we – like your customer – have become extremely good at ignoring them.7: The secret ­of success in advertising is knowing how to craft opening lines that pierce the clutter and win attention.8: After you’ve won their attention, you’ve got to hang on to it.9: TIP: Leave out the parts that make your ad feel like an ad.10: Because those are the moments we turn our attention elsewhere.11: GOOD NEWS! Your ads don’t have to be 581 times as good as the average ad.12: Your ads, your products, your services and your people just have to be a little bit better than your competitors’ for you to become the Cristiano Ronaldo of your category.Goal!Roy H. WilliamsLooking for answers that apply specifically to you and your situation?1 Forbes.com2 one pound of hundred-dollar bills is $45,4003 Assuming a 40 hr. workweek, 50 weeks a year.4 Yankelovich Market Research5 This number includes “brand exposures” along with ads.The average number of ads we encounter daily, including online, is 362.

Your body doesn’t have a single immune system; it has a bundle of them. And the most powerful of these systems is the one that rejects foreign tissue. This is why doctors do everything they can to suppress it during transplant surgery.That suppression doesn’t always work.When the cells of your body detect an intruder cell – “This is not like me, and I am not like it!” – they employ powerful forms of rejection.Your company employs a body of people who work together and each employee is like a cell within that body.And when a new employee comes and goes, they say, “He never really fit in.”This is why onboarding and enculturation should begin while the candidate is reading your job posting. When you’ve been taught how to write ads for employment, your ads will repel the people you don’t want while powerfully attracting the people you do want. When the right people read your ad, their hearts will whisper, “These people are like me, and I am like them.”Branding is nothing more than corporate culture made known.Good advertising promises or implies a specific kind of customer experience. It is then up to your people to deliver that experience.Your people are the essence of your brand.The most valuable skill a businessperson can have is the ability to recruit and retain good people.Did you hear that?Did you?I just heard ten thousand successful people quietly whisper, “Amen.”Roy H. Williams

Characters in books and movies and TV shows are magical. They make us laugh and cry and hold our breath as they take us to a vivid elsewhere.Conflicted, exaggerated, accelerated characters live in a world more interesting than our own. And it is a world we like to visit, even if it’s only 30 seconds at a time.This is why character-driven ad campaigns are outperforming logic-driven campaigns, hands down.We quickly get tired of sales pitches, but we never get tired of being charmed. The characters we love may change over time, but our love for characters never changes.Best of all, character-driven ad campaigns don’t have to be targeted to a specific birth cohort. Their appeal is cross-generational.So if you need to build a bridge to Millennials, put your hammer in the hand of a colorful, memorable, entertaining character.Do you remember the suave, invincible James Bond of the Sean Connery/Roger Moore years? (1962 to 1985 in case you were wondering.) Take that character, sand the British off him, wrap him in Chuck Norris jokes, and you’ve got The Most Interesting Man in the World. He tripled the sales of Dos Equis in Canada. And while craft beers were driving the sale of other beers down across the US, sales of Dos Equis increased by 34.8%. 1Put Mayberry’s wise, caring, and infinitely patient Andy Griffith in the passenger seat of an air-conditioning service van with an idiot-savant Forrest Gump in the driver’s seat and you’ve got Mr. Jenkins and Bobby, the most successful ad campaign in the history of home service companies. When Mr. Jenkins gave Bobby $100,000 during a 30-second ad that debuted two weeks ago and encouraged him to pursue his dream of becoming a movie star in Hollywood, social media exploded. The next morning it was front page news – above the fold – in the important Charlotte Observer, and a savvy outdoor advertising company asked permission to post “We’re Going to Miss You, Bobby” on all their digital billboards for free, and 2 major network TV affiliates treated it as major story in their newscasts, with one of them giving the story about 3 minutes, the other giving it more than 5 minutes.Can you believe this local service company in Charlotte, NC, has accumulated more than 1,000 Google Reviews with a 4.7 star average? This isn’t a restaurant, it’s a service company! Have you ever heard of such a thing?Only one other home services ad campaign has generated that kind of audience love and effectiveness: the relatively new “Boy with a flashlight” campaign of Goettl Air Conditioning in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Tucson. Sadie, the boy’s dog, is also an important part of that campaign.“What do a Forrest Gump idiot-savant and a boy with a flashlight and a dog have to do with air conditioning?”“Nothing. But they have everything to do with winning the hearts and minds of customers.”Take grubby Oscar Madison and uptight Felix Unger of The Odd Couple (1968,) give them each a glass of whiskey and fling them 49 years into the future (2017,) and you’ve got Rex and Daniel of The Whiskey Vault, YouTube’s fastest-growing whiskey channel, adding more than 20 new subscribers every hour, 24 hours a day. They just poured the foundation of their new distillery next to the campus at Wizard Academy.“Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me. But if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.”That campaign more than doubled sales and rocketed Old Spice Body Wash from its position in distant, second place to become the world’s best-selling body wash.Indy Beagle has these examples for you in the rabbit hole.No other beer company created an interesting character to win our time and attention. And how many air conditioning companies perform delightful antics to give customers warm feelings and happy thoughts? No other whiskey review channels on YouTube feature an entertaining odd couple, and no other soap is represented by a shirtless guy who shamelessly flirts with your wife. That’s why these companies – and lots of other companies with colorful character-driven ad campaigns – are winning. And winning big.When the customer laughs and smiles and bonds with your advertising, they now have a friend in the business. Why would they call anyone else?So, if character-driven ads are more effective, why aren’t more companies creating colorful and engaging characters to capture our attention and win our affection?Short-sighted advertisers are unwilling to “waste” precious TV and radio time to develop a relationship with the customer. “I’m paying for this airtime, so we’re going talk about ME, dammit!”Not a single college or university in America requires its students to study comedy or fiction writing to get a degree in Advertising and Marketing.Consequently, few advertising professionals know how to write banter and repartee.So now you know why most ads are filled with Ad Speak,and why everyone hates most ads.Roy H. Williams1 Forbes.com, June 14, 2017

The object of conformity and compliance is to bring the best of the past forward.A person can achieve expert results by following in the footsteps of an expert.The old ways are often the best ways.But you, my strong-willed friend, are a nonconformist; a renegade, a rebel, a misfit. One of “those” people.Congratulations. ADiscoveries are made only by those who stray from the path. “I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.”– Thomas Edison“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”– Henry David Thoreau“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”– Rita Mae Brown, Venus EnvyYou and I know an empowering secret: traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.That kind of talk is heresy when you’re surrounded by guardians of the orthodox. Let’s hope that none of them are listening.Two Powerful Questions and a Magic Word:When someone shouts, “You can’t do that!”Ask yourself, “What happens if I do?”If the potential reward is large and the negative consequences are small, pull the trigger and ride the bullet.When someone says, “You have to.”Ask yourself, “What happens if I don’t?”If your distaste for the activity is strong and the negative consequences are weak, shrug your shoulders and walk away.We’re talking about a simple but powerful concept: the evaluation of consequences.Sometimes it’s better to learn from expert advice and example.Sometimes it’s better to wander off the beaten path and learn from consequences.Your gut will tell you when.Here’s another way to put “consequences” to work for you:The next time you want to do something unorthodox and you need permission, say to the authority above you, “I’d like to do an experiment.”And then immediately tell them:1. what you hope to learn,2. why that information will be useful,3. how long the experiment will take, and4. what it will cost.It’s going to blow your mind how often you get approval. Present the same idea as a suggested change to the status quo and you’ll be shot out of the sky quicker than an October duck in Saskatchewan.The Magic word is “Experiment.”“Experiment” promises1. a budgeted window of time and resources, and2. “We’re about to learn something valuable that we don’t currently know.”The price of continual conformity and complianceis that one never experiences discovery.What a sad way to live!Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams

“I was told that repartee heightens the attention of an audience.”“Is this going to be like that time you told me about ambergris?”“What do you mean?”“There I was, minding my own business, when you started telling me how the most expensive perfume in the world comes from whale puke. Like I needed to know that.”“Yes. This is another interesting fact that will broaden your horizons.”“Okay, let’s get this over with. So tell me, what in the name of King-of-the-Sea Poseidon and Chicken-of-the-Sea tuna is repartee?“Repartee is the banter between interesting characters.”“Great. I appreciate you sharing that with me.”“But I haven’t told you why you need to know.”“I don’t know that I do need to know.”“You need to know.”“For the record, your little whale puke story still hasn’t done me any good.”“Someday you’ll be glad you know about ambergris.”“Can you name that day for me? I’ll put it on my calendar.”“You need to know about repartee today. Right now, in fact.”“Why?”“You’re about to start advertising.”“Yeah, and?”“Yankelovich says the average citizen is bombarded with more than 5,000 selling messages per day.”“Yankel who?”“Yankelovich. It’s a consumer behavior research firm.”“Five thousand a day, really?”“Yeah. So what are you going to do to make your message stand apart from those other 5,000?”“Repartee?”“Exactly.”“I think it might be easier to find some whale puke.”“Repartee works because people naturally turn their attention toward interesting interactions. Ever heard of Elmore Leonard?”“Novelist, right?”“When he was asked if he had a secret formula for writing bestsellers, he said, ‘I try to leave out the parts that people skip.’”“Dewey Crowe is my favorite character of his.”“Yeah, Dewey’s awesome. But then the interviewer had a follow-up question.”“Did they ask, ‘What are the parts that people skip?’”“Yeah. How did you know?”“It’s what I would have asked.”“So, do you want to know what they skip?”“Actually, yes.”“Everything that isn’t dialogue.”“So you’re saying all I have to do is turn my ads into a conversation between two people?”“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”“How is it not what you’re saying?”“If you write an ad and put it into the mouths of two people, it’s still an ad. It’s not dialogue. It’s not banter. It’s not repartee.”“What is it then?”“It’s Ad Speak.”“It would still sound like an ad?”“Of course it would. Real people never talk like that. Repartee is the personality-revealing banter between characters who actually have personalities.”“Like me and you?”“Mostly me.”“I’d have to do this repartee thing on radio or TV, right?”“Why do you think that?”“I mean, it’s people talking.”“But we’re not doing this on radio or TV. We’re doing this in an email.”“Is repartee a French word?”“I think so. Why do you ask?”“It sounds pretentious and that usually means it’s French.”“You can call it banter if you want.”“Banter. My ads are going to be known for banter. I’m going to be the Banter man.”“I’m glad I could help.”“Wait a minute. Did you say we were having this conversation in an email?”“Yeah. It’s a weekly thing sent out by a guy named Williams. Calls himself the Wizard of Ads.”“The Wizard of Ads?”“Yeah.”“Must be French.”[Both men start laughing.]# # END # #Roy H. Williams